Juventus defender Giorgio Chiellini, 33, is set to sign a new contract, despite being wanted by Chelsea. (Calciomercato)

Manchester United and Chelsea are both interested in Middlesbrough's 20-year-old England Under-21 centre-back Dael Fry. (Teamtalk)

The agent of Manchester United target Krepin Diatta, 18, says the Sarpsborg midfielder is not ready for a move to a big European club. (FootMercato, via Metro)

Birmingham City's owners have vowed to back new manager Steve Cotterill by investing in the club's playing squad as they seek promotion. (Birmingham Mail)

New York City manager Martin Gray is hoping to bring in three players before Saturday's home match against Brackley. (York Press)

Meanwhile...

Leicester City defender Ben Chilwell, 20, has wished his England U-21 room-mate Harry Winks well as he makes the step up to Gareth Southgate's senior side.

Southgate will reiterate to Dele Alli the importance of discipline after the 21-year-old Tottenham midfielder was given a one-game ban for his gesture during the Three Lions' win over Slovakia last month. (Daily Mail)

Italy striker Simone Zaza, 26, made a "huge mistake" by agreeing to join West Ham, says his father and agent. (Calciomercato)

Carlo Ancelotti says he will take a 10-month break before considering returning to football, after he was sacked by Bayern Munich last week. (Gazzetta dello Sport)

Everton manager Ronald Koeman is on the verge of being sacked following his side's 1-0 home defeat by Burnley on Sunday. (Sun)

The Dutchman says his future at Goodison Park is out of his hands. (Daily Mirror)

Everton's majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri has given his support to the club's under-pressure manager Koeman by stating the 1-0 loss to Burnley is their only "unexpected defeat" this season. (Guardian)

West Ham manager Slaven Bilic will get until the end of the season to prove his worth at the Hammers. (Daily Mirror)

Everton will not renew their interest in Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud, 31, when the transfer window opens in January. (Daily Star)

Guardian Rumour Mill

Simon Burnton

Mesut Özil is for sale, the Mirror exclusively reveal, though the first sentence of their story containing this news sounds disappointingly equivocal, announcing only that “Arsenal could be ready to cash in” on the German, just months before his contract expires and he can stroll half-heartedly out of the Emirates for good and indeed for nothing. “Inter have shown a strong interest and that may tempt the Gunners to cash in,” they reveal.

The Independent however exclusively announces that Manchester United are going to sign him instead. “José Mourinho is highly confident of convincing him to join United,” they insist, “based on their previous working relationship at Real Madrid. Mourinho and Özil worked well together, with the Portuguese placing great trust in the playmaker as he quickly realised that Özil was capable of understanding and executing complex tactical orders.”

And there may be even more change coming for Arsenal in January, with the Star suggesting that the Gunners “could swap Alexis Sánchez for Paris Saint-Germain star Julian Draxler in a mega January transfer deal”. Apparently the French club is “tempted by the idea” but face competition for the Chilean from Milan, among others.

And then there’s Antoine Griezmann, the French forward who signed a new contract with Atlético Madrid but a few months ago after a long-rumoured move to Manchester United failed to actually happen. Now Alexandre Lacazette has given an interview in which he declares he and Griezmann “are very good friends and have lots of fun”, principally by calling each other by their ingenious pet names, Griezzy and Lacaz. “If Griezzy visits me in London,” Lacazette pledges, “I’m going to ask him to sign for Arsenal!” This light-hearted comment, made by someone who has no influence whatsoever over Arsenal’s transfer dealings, has prompted actual news stories in apparently serious publications.

Ronald Koeman may have been given a stay of execution by Everton’s major shareholder, Farhad Moshiri, but according to the Sun he’s not happy about it. Apparently his players “are convinced [their manager] wants out of Goodison Park” having “noticed the Dutchman becoming more distant and detached” and now “believe he is just waiting to be fired”.

Across town at Anfield, meanwhile, Liverpool are preparing to make a signing. Could this be the actually-decent centre-half they so desperately need? Nope, it’s Sheffield United’s 20-year-old winger David Brooks, who has only made 20 first-team appearances in his life but since breaking into the first-team at the start of the season has, we’re told, impressed scouts so regularly that the Reds are ready to get their chequebook out.

Elsewhere in the Championship, there is a veritable scrum taking place as scouts compete for the best view of the Middlesbrough defender Dael Fry, who according to the Mail “has impressed at the heart of Boro’s defence this season” even if “he was taken out of the firing line last weekend after a blip against Norwich”. Still, it has been enough to get Manchester United, Everton, Leicester and Chelsea excited. United meanwhile have had some bad news in their pursuit of another talented youngster, Sarpsborg’s Senegalese starlet Krépin Diatta, whose agent has admitted that “he’s not ready for a big European club” and insisted that “you need to go through the steps methodically”.

C&H

Bilic’s long list of exit door players

A stray comment within a long conversation last night got me thinking about the lack of stability we have seen enter our playing squad over the last two and a bit years.

Stability is usually the key to good practices in any walk of life – without it things can go wrong in a heartbeat and it may be that which is at the bottom of many of our issues.

I simply do not have the time to work out how many different formations we have used this season in the League or indeed how many players. If there’s a budding stats man out there – MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN – WE CAN ALWAYS USE ONE!

But by my reckoning since he became manager and Slaven fielded his first team in the 2015-16 season, a total of 25 players (it may be more so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) have left the club.

Some have been loans of course and injury may have accounted for the likes of Carl Jenkinson and we had best ignore the reasons around Payet.

But by and large they have exited as a result of other preferences coming into the frame.

Whatever the reasons for their departures it’s a long list for two and a bit years in charge – and shows an underlying issue about the problems of staff turnover:

West Ham are keen to sign Estoril midfielder Matheus Jesus, according to reports.

Ialian news outlet Calciomercato claim the Hammers and Watford are interested in the Brazilian, who is currently on loan at Santos.

Fiorentina are reportedly leading the chase for the 20-year-old, with the Serie A club willing to bid €3.5m to secure the midfielder's services.

However, Santos are keen to retain the youngster for the remainder of the season, and the report claims it will be complicated for a deal to be done until next summer.

West Ham's search for a box-to-box midfielder dates back to the summer when the Hammers were strongly linked with a move for Sporting Lisbon's William Carvalho.

At one point the two clubs appeared close to negotiating a deal, but talks reportedly broke down after a fee could not be agreed.

A Sporting Lisbon official, however, claimed the Hammers never made an offer for William Carvalho.

Sporting's communications director Nuno Saraiva claimed the club had received no proposal for Carvalho before going on to make a series of controversial remarks on social media about Hammers co-chairman David Sullivan.